William Bergmann's new book, The American National State and the Early West is a worthwhile read for everyone with interests in North American economic history over the period 1790–1820. It will be of particular value to readers interested in the frontier, which at the time ranged roughly from Pittsburgh west to include much of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan. The frontier is often portrayed as a place far from federal government influence where rugged individualists forged a living from the soil. While true for some times and places on the frontier, reality, not surprisingly, is far more complex. Throughout the region the British, Spanish, French, Americans, and Native Americans and their governments interacted about trade and land use at different times.

The American federal government maintained a presence in the region through the postal system—roads, postal riders, and postmasters—and through its military operations and forts. Both the postal system and the military provided economic stimulus to the region. They required food and other supplies. Many of these were more cost-effectively acquired locally, given the high costs of transportation during the period. The economic opportunity created by the forts and postal systems then made the frontier more attractive, encouraging further settlement.

Chapter 1 lays out the interplay among settlers and Native Americans in the Ohio Valley. They engaged in constant, usually low-level, warfare. Native Americans tried to discourage settlement and interference with tradition hunting grounds. Whites came initially for hunting and increasingly as settlers. State or local militias sometimes assisted whites, but given limited funding and personnel, they were constrained in what they could do. Increasingly settlers petitioned for federal intervention. And the federal government did respond, although not always in the way that settlers desired. Federal presence initially focused on limiting whites, rather than pushing Native Americans back. By 1792 the federal government had become more expansionist, and native tribes had formed a pan-ethnic coalition to combat the increasing U.S. military presence in the region.

Chapter 2 presents the series of events occurring between 1792 and 1794—specifically Anthony Wayne's military campaign—which led to firmer federal control over the region. This third campaign had more and better trained men and more supplies than two earlier campaigns. Despite scarcity of supplies and other difficulties characteristic of late eighteenth-century warfare, Wayne was able to push back the pan-ethnic coalition. After his victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, he left behind military personnel at the newly established Forts Industry, Defiance, and Wayne.

Chapter 3 describes the tenuous peace that settled on the region following the end of hostilities in 1794. Much of 1795 was consumed with the Treaty of Greenville, which officially ended hostilities with the Native American tribes. Bergmann concludes (p. 130), “American forts, with relatively small numbers of soldiers stationed there, could no more police the Ohio country than could the British before them. Indian country and the international border remained fluid in terms of loyalty, economy, and geographic mobility. What the United States had achieved, at least, was an illusion of authority and a precedent for regional hegemony. It would take another fifteen years to transform that illusion into something closer to reality.”

Chapter 4 details the “webs of commerce” that developed to serve forts and emerging towns as the Ohio Valley became less contested. Economic ties to key cities including Detroit, Niagara, Cincinnati, and adjacent areas of Upper Canada were strengthened. Economic activity tended to move along the lakes and rivers, in part because of the difficulty of goods coming over the Allegheny Mountains through Pittsburgh. Roads were built to facilitate commerce and maintain connections to the East. Notwithstanding Albert Gallatin's 1808 Report on Roads and Canals, the building of transportation infrastructure largely fell to states and localities. Bergmann's point is that federal government's role has been underappreciated. The development of the infrastructure was in part a response to the economic opportunities created by federal expenditures on military installations and the postal system.

Chapter 5 examines the federal presence in Indian Country. The federal government established factories—trading houses focused on capturing Indian furs and commerce —in a variety of locations. The factories served a variety of strategic purposes, including binding—or attempting to bind—the Indians to the United States economically, observing movements and military actions of different tribes, monitoring the presence of foreign traders and officials in the region, and serving as a base to explore for mineral and other resources.

Chapter 6 discusses the shift west in the frontier. The Ohio Valley was now peaceful, but the Mississippi Valley became contentious. Many of the earlier patterns played out again. Caught up in the War of 1812, the federal government had limited resources to devote to the west. With the end of the war and the Treaty of Ghent, the government turned to the upper Mississippi Valley and trans-Mississippi west.

This book offers a richly detailed historical account of an interesting, important, and understudied period in American state formation. I very much enjoyed reading it. Having done considerable research on this time period and on the west, I did not find Bergmann's hypothesis very surprising. Many readers may, however, be unaware of the role that the federal government played in the Ohio Valley and the west more broadly. The lack of awareness is indicative of the unevenness of the historical treatment of this period. Nearly all of the scholarship on this time period covers events in the major eastern cities, particularly events related to the Revolution, early state formation, and the War of 1812. While the west has received considerable scholarly attention, it is the west from the Mississippi to the Pacific, not the west from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi.